


i wore his jacket for the longest time

by sharkhette



Category: Preacher (TV), The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Afterlife, Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Drug Abuse, Drug Addiction, Drug Use, Drug Withdrawal, Gen, Gun Violence, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, My Chemical Romance References, Suicide, Suicide Attempt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-21
Updated: 2019-02-21
Packaged: 2019-11-01 15:03:54
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,252
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17869484
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sharkhette/pseuds/sharkhette
Summary: So, maybe Klaus wasn’t in his right frame of mind. Maybe he hadn’t been for a long time. But Dave was dead, and that meant Klaus should be able to conjure him, one way or another. The traditional method of cleaning up his act and sitting around to wait hadn’t worked, so it was time to get imaginative.Klaus just wants to see Dave again, and he's willing to do whatever it takes to make that happen, no matter the cost. Includes conversations with Ben, Diego, God, a surly preacher, and gratuitous references to certain MCR songs.





	i wore his jacket for the longest time

**Author's Note:**

> Please note the tags! Themes/depictions of suicide feature heavily. Read with caution.
> 
> AU in which Vanya does not blow up the moon and cause the apocalypse, or they time-travelled and averted it, whatever. Also the house is still standing. Just because.
> 
> Cameos from Preacher characters (namely Jesse and God), but knowledge of that show isn't necessary.
> 
> Title from Richard Siken's poem "Little Beast:" _I couldn't get the boy to kill me, but I wore his jacket for the longest time._

Klaus stayed sober for nine days before calling it quits.

“Maybe you just need to try harder,” Ben said, watching as Klaus paced from room to room, tearing through closets and drawers and digging under mattresses looking for something, anything, to get him high again. 

“It’s not working! Nine days—why should it take more than nine days? That’s insane! If it hasn’t worked by now it’s not going to. I have to try something else.”

“Remember how long it took to get me to physically manifest?” Ben pressed, edging closer like he could actually intervene. “We practiced for ages.”

“I’m not trying to get him to physically manifest,” Klaus said through gritted teeth. “I just want to see him. That should be—fucking—nothing!” He pulled a pair of old jeans from the depths of a drawer and rifled through the pockets, throwing them aside when they yielded no results.

Ben sat down on the bed and folded his arms. “This isn’t going to help.”

“It’s definitely not going to hurt, either, so.”

xXx

So, maybe he wasn’t in his right frame of mind. Maybe he hadn’t been for a long time. But Dave was dead, and that meant Klaus should be able to conjure him, one way or another. The traditional method of cleaning up his act and sitting around to wait hadn’t worked, so it was time to get imaginative.

xXx

Sleeping pills weren’t hard to get ahold of, no matter which way you turned it, and there was never any shortage of alcohol.

“This is a bad idea,” Ben said.

Klaus shrugged, restless and itching out of his skin. “Yeah, no shit. You gonna hit me again?” He was pretty sure Ben couldn’t or he would have done it already. “Look, what’s the worst that could happen?”

Ben’s eyebrows went up. “You die?”

“Well, sure, but listen, right?” Klaus shook a handful of pills out into his palm. “When I talked to Dad the last time I died, he said all that stuff about untapped potential, right? How I was squandering my abilities and all that shit. So what if—what if this is it? What if this is the next step I’m supposed to take? To like—you know, tap into all that—” He wiggled the fingers of his empty hand. “Beyond-the-veil bullshit.”

Ben shook his head.

“You don’t know that,” Klaus argued. “This could be exactly what I’m supposed to do!”

“Since when has Dad’s advice ever steered you in the right direction?”

Point. 

But.

“I don’t know what else to do. I can’t see him. No matter what I do or how long I stay sober or…I can’t see him.” Klaus dropped down onto the edge of the mattress. “I got close, a couple of times.” Ben sat down beside him. “I could hear his boots on the floor. Once I heard him say my name. But the rest of it is just…” He shrugged. He could feel himself crying, the tears catching in his lashes and refracting the light, wetting his mascara into clumps like spider-legs before it ran. “The rest of it’s just flashbacks. Just screaming and gunfire and…so much blood.” 

He wanted to lean into Ben’s shoulder, to feel something warm against his skin, a heartbeat or a hand to hold. 

He didn’t try. Didn’t really want to face reality when he fell through empty air with nothing to catch him.

Instead, he shuffled the pills in his palm and leaned down to swipe the bottle of whiskey from the floor where it waited. Bought fresh for the purpose, though he’d already taken a few swigs. It wasn’t so much that he needed to muster the courage to go through with it, not when he’d died so many times already. Technicalities, those other times—when his heart had stopped beating in some anonymous ambulance, or that dick had hit him hard enough at the club that he’d seen God (even if the debate was still going on that one). But he’d never killed himself on purpose before. And he was pretty sure he could come back, but…

There was something comforting in how the drink burned its way down his throat, warming him from the inside out. He’d thought the ghosts were bad, but their clamouring was nothing compared to the constant _ratatat_ of jungle gunfire. It echoed off the insides of his skull like he’d never left the battlefield.

“You should call somebody,” Ben said softly.

Klaus snorted. “I’m sorry? Who would care? We’ve been over this: people don’t notice shit about me.”

“Call Diego. He puts up with your bullshit better than anyone, except for me. He cares.”

Klaus wiped his nose with the back of his hand. “Yeah, no. I’m not going to call Diego. This’ll be fine.”

“He’d understand,” Ben insisted. “He lost his cop friend, remember?”

“Yeah, and he dealt with that by going all badass-vigilante-killer-guy on those hitmen. What am I gonna do, throw knives at—at the war? I don’t even know who shot him. It doesn’t matter. This isn’t…” He shook his head. “It’s fine.”

He opened his palm to count the pills. They all jumbled together, little white dots piled into a mountain. His lifeline was buried underneath and some distant part of him laughed at that. Maybe he should take up palm-reading afterwards, get a crystal ball, really lean into all that mystic shit. Maybe he could make enough money off it to fuel his drug habit, since it clearly wasn’t going anywhere. Start calling himself The Séance and milk those few sad bastards left in the world who still cared about the Umbrella Academy.

The whiskey was getting warm in his other hand. Deep breaths. Focus. The tears ran down his face, trailing makeup in their wake. It was funny because he didn’t even feel sad, not really, because this was going to work. It had to.

“Klaus.”

“I’ll be back soon,” he promised, and downed the pills all at once, crunching them and gagging at the bitterness before swallowing hard. Whiskey next, enough that he nearly choked on it, but he’d had too much practice for that. 

He swung his legs up onto the bed, curling around the pillow as he lay down to wait. Ben didn’t move. Klaus could feel him radiating worry and disappointment, but that was nothing new.

“Hey,” Klaus murmured, just before the dark settled in. He reached out, groping for Ben’s hand, forgetting for a second that they couldn’t actually touch. “Hey, you’ll be here when I come back, right?”

Ben sighed. “Yeah, probably. I’ll be here.”

Klaus smiled and shut his eyes. “Good. S’good company. Glad you’re still…”

And then the dark washed over him, that sweet oblivion he’d felt a thousand times before, crashing into him like a wave that obliterated every last sense until all he felt was peace. The hand that had a moment ago held the pills dropped to rest palm up, fingers curled unconsciously, like beetle legs or flower petals.

GOOD BYE.

xXx

This time, the girl was in the company of an older man with a shock of thick white hair, and wearing a latex dalmatian suit. They both looked up when Klaus appeared, the girl frowning and the man looking curiously bewildered.

“Hi again,” Klaus said, offering a wave.

“I told you: I don’t want you here,” the girl said. “What are you doing?”

“Yeah, well, I didn’t really want to run into you again either. Or your friend.” Klaus looked the man up and down. He had to be well into his sixties, and that latex didn’t leave much to the imagination. “Nice suit. Guess they’ve got furries in the afterlife too, huh?”

The man tutted wearily. “I remember when mortals used to have more respect,” he sighed to the girl.

“I don’t,” she said bluntly.

“I’m looking for my friend. Is he here? Can I talk to him?”

“This isn’t a social club,” the man said sternly. “You don’t get to drop in and out as you please.”

“No, but this is important—”

“Klaus,” said the girl, and hey, he hadn’t realized she’d actually known his name, so that was nice, if weird. “You have to go.”

He waved them off, turning on his heel to explore the flat, bleak landscape without their help. He steered clear of the little barbershop; he doubted his dad was still in there, but wasn’t interested in taking any chances of running into the old bastard again. Instead, he picked his way through the brambles until they fell back to hard sand, and the sky opened wide and white up above, as blank as a sheet of paper. Looking up, his head spun, a rush of dizziness slamming through him.

“No, not yet, hang on, not yet—”

He crawled on hands and knees, not knowing where he was going but determined to keep moving. Barbed wire, mud, gunfire blasting overhead. As long as he kept moving, they couldn’t drag him back, not until—

“Dave,” he whispered. His vision was going, blacking out around the edges in thick splotches. His fingers and toes were tingling with sharp, biting pins and needles. “Dave, come on, where are you, please—”

xXx

He woke in the back of an ambulance with a choked gasp, two paramedics leaning over him with matching frowns.

“Shit. Didn’t work.” And he fell back into the dark again.

xXx

Ben was leaning against the hospital bed with his arms crossed and scowl on his face, and he was the first thing Klaus saw when he opened his eyes.

“Hey,” he croaked, flopping one arm out in Ben’s direction. “You’re still here.”

“What the fuck,” Diego said flatly from the other side of the room.

Klaus turned. “Oh. You. Hello.”

“They said you overdosed in the stupidest way possible.”

“That’s true,” he admitted. He had no illusions: no one would have been surprised if that was how he really went. He hoped it would have been on something more exciting than sleeping pills, though. “Why are you here?”

“I’m your emergency contact.”

“Really?” Klaus racked his brain. “Oh, yeah, I must’ve changed that just after the whole…” He waved his hand. “Apocalypse thing, when we had all those bonding moments. Sorry to trouble you.”

“Klaus.” Diego was sitting in the visitor’s chair, and he dragged it closer to the bed so he could glare at Klaus from a closer angle. Klaus dropped his head back to the pillow and rolled his eyes at the ceiling. “Were you trying to kill yourself?”

“No, of course not! It was a stupid accident. I miscalculated.”

“You took an entire bottle of sleeping pills. They found you with a bottle of whiskey still in your hand. Do you think I’m an idiot?”

Klaus glanced at him. “No?”

Diego punched the mattress beside Klaus’ arm and stood. “They’re keeping you for observation. Because you’re suicidal. You fucking moron.”

“No, hey, wait.” Klaus scrabbled to sit up, stilling only at Diego’s flat glare. “Take me with you? I’m not suicidal, it’s—complicated. But I’ll explain everything if you get them to release me into your care. Promise. Cross my heart.”

“Why should I want you in my care?”

“Because I’m your brother and you love me?”

“Try harder.”

Klaus licked his lips. They were dry enough to crack, and the inside of his mouth was parched and tasted horrible, like something had died in it. Ha. “Because I can conjure your girlfriend? Patch, right? The detective?”

Diego took a step closer, one finger raised threateningly. “You keep her name out of your mouth. She deserves better than that.”

But that wasn’t a no.

xXx

Klaus tried to go clean again, if only because he couldn’t stand the look of quiet disappointment on Ben’s face. Diego was more verbal in his disapproval, but Diego was also easier to avoid, even living under the same roof.

“You live in a boiler room?”

“I like it here.” There was the faintest hint of a smile around the corners of Diego’s mouth, like he was used to having this conversation, though Klaus couldn’t imagine he’d brought many people over.

He shrugged. He slept in a sleeping bag on the concrete floor and tried to sober up, shivering and sweating and feeling like he was going to die for real this time. On the second day, he got Diego to tie him up.

“You’re one sick fuck, you know that?” Diego asked conversationally as he secured the ropes in place.

“Why thank you.” The ropes dug into his arms as Diego pulled them tighter. “Am I the only one getting a wild rush of déjà vu right now, or…? No? Just me? Okay.” He shifted inside the bonds. They didn’t budge.

“I’ll come get you in a couple hours,” Diego said, and reached in to cup Klaus’ face, forcing him to look up. It took everything Klaus had not to lean into the touch. “You got this, man.”

“I got this,” Klaus repeated helplessly.

Four hours in, the ghosts came back.

It wasn’t as bad as it had been in the motel, nowhere near as bad as when he’d been a kid, but fuck, there was a reason he didn’t do this. They swarmed around, all voices and half-formed faces, begging for attention.

“Can’t you do something?” he asked Ben, struggling against the ropes as they pressed in close from all sides. “Talk to them, or—”

“Not really,” Ben apologized. “We can see and hear each other, but we can’t really…”

“Shit,” Klaus breathed through his teeth. “Shit, you mean, you can’t even socialize when you’re dead? It’s me or nobody? That’s fucked up. That’s… Fuck, god, please, please—”

“It’s okay. Klaus? Klaus! You’re okay. Diego will be back soon.”

“He’s not here,” Klaus whispered. The ghosts were thick, more of them than he could count, their faces pale and stretched with wide black eyes and gaping mouths, all screaming and howling into the void. “Dave’s not here. He’s the only one I want to see and I can’t get him!” He wrenched himself to the side, rocking the chair over on two legs, trying to pull free from the ropes. “He’s the only one! Why can’t I find him?!”

xXx

When Diego came back, Klaus was on his side, staring blankly across the floor.

“Aw, shit.” Diego hauled him upright and untied him, rubbing Klaus’ arms where the ropes had dug in and left red welts. “You okay, man?”

Klaus nodded.

“You sure?” Diego asked skeptically. “Much as I love you shutting that giant mouth of yours once in a while, I’m pretty sure it’s a bad sign.”

“I’m fine,” Klaus said softly. He wrapped his arms around his ribs. The canvas of his vest was rough, and he tapped his fingertips across it like a mantra. “I found Patch,” he offered.

Diego stiffened. “She here now?”

“You can talk to her, if you want. I don’t know if I can bring her through so you can really see her, but she can hear you.”

“I, uh.” Diego looked lost. “I…”

“She says hi.”

She had also said, _“I’m glad you got out of there,”_ and, _“Diego didn’t get himself killed trying to fix this, did he?”_ Klaus didn’t know how to apologize to someone for running away and leaving them to die, so he didn’t try.

“Can you make her…” Diego cleared his throat. “Can you try to bring her through?”

Klaus was so tired. He was shaking from withdrawal, his whole body aching and trembling, but more than that, he just felt empty. “It won’t be like how I did with Ben. I can’t…” He shook his head. “I’ll try.”

He tried until his head hurt and his nails dug bloody crescents into his palms and he just wanted to lay down with a drink of something awful and go to sleep, but then Diego made a sudden sound like a sob, wide-eyed, and there—Detective Patch flickered like a mirage, shimmering by the bed.

“Eudora,” Diego whispered. “Eudora… I’m so sorry. I’m sorry, I didn’t get your message in time—why didn’t you wait? I was coming, I swear, I was right behind you, but I didn’t—”

Klaus shook with the effort of maintaining the connection, Ben leaning over his shoulder and urging him on.

“It’s okay,” Klaus choked out. “She says she knows. Says—that’s what she gets for trying things your way—”

Diego staggered back, running one hand over his face, and Patch whirled on Klaus, furious. “Don’t you dare let him think he’s to blame for my fuck-ups!” she snapped.

“No!” Klaus yelped. “No, she didn’t mean like that. She doesn’t blame you. She says she’s sorry too, for not waiting for backup, for…”

The ghost flickered, growing fainter, and Diego made an awful sound and reached for her.

“You can’t touch her,” Klaus said softly. “I’m sorry, just—” He dug his fingers into the arms of the chair until his knuckles bleached white and his bones creaked. “Say what you need to say. I can’t keep her visible much longer.”

“I’m sorry,” Diego repeated, reaching for Patch’s face. He froze just before he touched her, before his hand would have gone through her cheek. She looked so sad. “We got them, though, the ones who did this to you. And the one who pulled the trigger…” He hung his head. “I didn’t kill her. Know how you felt about that shit, and I didn’t want you to… But we got them. It’s done. I promise.”

“I know,” she whispered, and Diego’s whole face lit up, just for a second.

She reached for him too, solidifying for a bare moment, just long enough for the room’s dim lights to catch on her blood-soaked shirt, shot through the chest just like Dave had been when Klaus—

Klaus slammed one hand over his mouth before he could cry out, but the connection dropped. Patch blinked out of sight like she had never been, and Diego was left trying to hold thin air.

“I’m sorry,” Klaus panted through his fingers. “I’m sorry, I couldn’t hold on any longer. I tried.”

Diego shook his head like he was waking from a trance. “It’s okay. I got to tell her.” He clapped Klaus on the shoulder, still looking lost. “Come on, get up. Let’s get some food in you.”

The thought made Klaus’ stomach churn. “You know what, maybe not…”

Diego raised his brows. “You’ve been tied to a chair for the past six hours. Get up, drink some water, have a shower, and eat some food. You need it.”

The shower sounded good, at least. The ghosts could never touch him, but he could always feel their fingers grasping at him, like tree branches in the dead of winter. Just bones and icy cold. He finally nodded, letting Diego help him to his feet and guide him to the door.

“Shower’s down the hall. The place is closed for the night, so nobody should be around to bother you.”

“Yeah, okay. Thanks, man.”

Diego shut the door to the boiler room and Klaus leaned back against it, tipping his head back and closing his eyes. He felt wrung out, too tired to take another step. On the other side of the door he heard the soft _thunk thunk_ of two knives burying themselves in a wall, and then the quiet, muffled sounds of someone crying. He only hesitated a minute before pushing off from the door and slinking away.

xXx

Turns out, guns weren’t much harder to get than drugs.

xXx

“Klaus.” Diego sounded like he was talking from a million miles away. “What are you doing.”

“It’s okay,” Klaus said absently, perched on the edge of Diego’s bed, the gun in one hand and his dog tags wrapped up tight in the other, over his heart. He didn’t like the feel of the gun: too heavy, too solid. Too permanent-feeling. He hadn’t liked the guns then, either, but at least then they’d been part of the uniform, just one more batshit part of a terrible awful handful of months he could never get back, no matter how hard he tried.

“Klaus, give me the gun.”

“No, I’ve got it figured out this time, see? The overdose didn’t work because the drugs—they dampen all the…” He waved his hand, gesturing carelessly with the gun. Diego edged back. “The séance stuff, right? Obviously that was never going to work. But this—”

“Klaus! Give it to me. Now.”

“This should work,” Klaus repeated. “He got shot too, so it’s like coming full circle, right?”

“Where’s Ben?” Diego demanded. “I thought he was supposed to talk you out of shit like this.”

Klaus laughed under his breath. It came out as a shaky, uncertain thing. “I freaked him out. He left. Can you believe that? After all this time, and _I_ freaked _him_ out.” He turned the gun over, checked the chamber, the safety. Good to go.

“Wait, back up. Who else got shot?”

“Dave.” The name came out like a sigh.

“And who’s Dave?”

Klaus bit his lip until he tasted blood. “I loved him. He’s the only person I’ve ever loved, and now he’s the only person I can’t find again.” He looked up at Diego. “You know how that feels, right? How you’d do anything to see them again, just for a second, just to say—”

“Yeah, I do, but killing yourself isn’t gonna fix that,” Diego said sharply. “Would your Dave want you to kill yourself over him? Huh?”

Klaus broke into a wide smile. He could taste his own tears. “No, silly, but I won’t stay dead. I’ve got it all figured out now. They don’t want me in the afterlife, you know? That little girl, the one who says she’s God—she won’t let me stay. I’ll come back.”

Diego took a deep breath. “Give me the gun.”

“No.”

Diego lunged, slamming into Klaus with his full weight, and Klaus had been shaking the whole time, fingers trembling, and something slipped—the shot went off, a deafening burst so sudden Klaus thought his heart stopped, and that was good, but then—

Then—

“Shit, no, no no no, Diego—"

A burst of blood, hot and sticky-wet, against his palms as he dropped the gun and scrabbled to cover the wound.

“Shit, Diego, I didn’t mean it, hang on—”

Diego fell in slow motion, knees hitting the floor first, then onto his side, knocking Klaus’ hands aside to cover the wound himself. The bullet had hit him in the side, below the ribs, maybe off center enough to miss anything vital. All Klaus could see was Dave, lying dead with his chest blown open, too late for anything. Klaus dropped down beside him, trying to curl in on himself and help at the same time.

“Get off,” Diego snarled, shoving at him. “Go get help! I’m not dying yet, just—”

“I can help!” he promised, still frantically pawing at Diego’s shirt, trying to get the fabric out of the way to check the injury. “I can help, just hold still, I know medical stuff, I can—”

The blood kept welling up. Klaus found the bullet in the wound and pried it out with slippery fingers just before Diego lost consciousness.

xXx

Klaus held the gun delicately, flipping it from one hand to the other like he couldn’t bear to touch it in one place for too long. Ben hadn’t come back yet. Diego lay sprawled over the mattress, wrapped up in gauze all taped in place. His first aid kit was better stocked than the field kits in the war, even if Klaus had needed to stop and throw up halfway through stitching him back together.

But he was still alive.

Klaus swapped the gun back and forth. Check the chamber, check the safety. Left hand, repeat. Right, repeat. HELLO. GOOD BYE.

Diego stirred and Klaus sat up ramrod straight, leaning in to grab his hand. Strong pulse. Definitely alive. Ghosts didn’t have heartbeats, didn’t need to breathe. Didn’t keep bleeding. Just cold and screaming and—

“You idiot,” Diego groaned.

Klaus broke into a watery smile, barking out a laugh. “Yeah, I know. But you’re okay, okay? You’re fine. Just—” He patted Diego’s chest, reassuring himself he was really there, still alive, still solid. “I called Five; he knows more about field surgery and all that shit than I do. He’s on his way. Guess he decided it wasn’t a priority or he would have just, you know. Jumped over. But that’s good! He’s not worried. Just, just hang on.”

“Klaus, I’m fine. I’ll live.” 

Diego tried to get his elbow under him and make his way upright but Klaus pushed him back against the pillow.

“Don’t get up,” Klaus instructed, his voice going shaky again. “And don’t freak out, okay? Everything’s going to be fine. I just have to—”

Diego’s eyes widened and he struggled to sit up. “Wait! Don’t—”

Klaus put the gun to his temple and pulled the trigger.

xXx

_BANG._

Both his eardrums blew out, and the last thing he saw as he fell, silently, was Diego’s horrified expression, his mouth forming voiceless words.

 _Sorry,_ Klaus tried to say. _I promise I know what I’m…_

xXx

This time he was in the desert. It stretched out blankly all around him, flat in black and white like someone had bled away all the colours. Cacti stood up, spiky and towering, in bursts every mile or so through the sand. Texas, maybe. Somewhere in the deep south. Fuck if he knew.

The girl was watching him from the back of a donkey. “You idiot.”

“Yeah, I know.” He rubbed the back of his neck. Still weird to see his skin without colour like that, but he’d always been pale, save for his stint in the jungle. Paler with all the drugs, and his tan was fading away to nothing now. Even his army vest was grey, which probably wasn’t a good sign, but he couldn’t think about that right now. He tugged on his dog tags to make sure they were still there.

“I told you, I don’t want you here,” the girl said. “Why’d you keep coming back?”

“Is he here?” Klaus’ voice cracked and he didn’t try to hide it. Pretty sure there was no point. “Last time you wouldn’t help, and before that you pointed me straight to my dear old dad, which, by the way—not cool.” He swallowed. There were tears welling up in his eyes but he didn’t bother brushing them away. “I need to see Dave.”

She shook her head. “That’s not how this works.”

“Why not?!” He stamped his foot into the flat sand and felt nothing but his own frustration.

“You being able to see the dead was a mistake. There’s not supposed to be a crossover like that between the living and the dead. I’m not enabling you.”

“But I’m already here,” he pleaded.

She shook her head, her perfectly neat hair swinging over her shoulders like a waterfall. “Come here. I’ll send you back.”

“Fuck you.”

“Rude.”

He ran.

He made it further this time, losing himself in the depths of that depthless desert before his knees gave out and he sank into the sand. It felt like cardboard. If he reached his hand out, he could probably touch the horizon, like everything was painted on a backdrop, Hollywood-style.

“The afterlife sucks,” he said aloud. “Dave, if you’re here, I hope you’re getting more out of this than I am.”

A flicker of movement out of the corner of one eye. He turned his head, expecting to see the girl on her donkey, but instead he saw a man dressed all in black, with unruly hair and a surly expression. He wore the white collar of a preacher at his throat and looked like the least forgiving person Klaus had ever seen, except maybe that one hit-woman who’d beat the shit out of him that time.

“Hi,” Klaus said. He’d already blown his own brains out; what was some dead preacher going to do after that?

“You seen an old guy in a dog suit around anywhere?” the preacher asked, looking pained. His voice had a dragging southern drawl to it that fit the surroundings.

Klaus sat up, letting his head tilt to one side as he squinted against the non-existent sun. “I met him last time. He was kind of a dick.”

The preacher snorted. “Yeah, he is.”

“Just saw the girl this time, though. You met her yet? I don’t think I like her very much. Or she doesn’t like me. Whatever. And that donkey didn’t look too friendly either, so. I’m avoiding them for a while.” He blew out his breath. There was no air in the desert; that was the problem. No breeze, no warmth when it should be sweltering. Nothing. “Where is this, anyway?”

“Purgatory, I figure.”

“Oh, great. That’s optimistic.”

The preacher looked at him sideways. “What are you doing here?”

“I’m looking for someone too. A Vietnam vet? Young, though, and…” Klaus sighed. Young and gentle and beautiful and way too kind to be wrapped up in a war, dead on the battlefield. Fucking purgatory. He couldn’t even manage to get into the right place, not that he believed in—oh, fuck it all.

The preacher shook his head. “Sorry. You’re the first living soul I’ve seen since I got here.”

“Right. Living. Ha.” Klaus picked at the hem of his shirt. “So, hey, you got a drink on you? Because I’m having kind of a shitty day… Month. Life?” He laughed. “Anyway.”

The preacher pulled a flask out from inside his jacket and handed it over. Klaus took a swig without asking what it was. It burned the inside of his mouth and he coughed as soon as he swallowed, but he got it down.

“Thanks,” he croaked, offering it back. “This whole sobriety thing was a mistake.”

“I hear you.” The flask disappeared inside the preacher’s jacket again as the man looked Klaus up and down. “You know, you remind me of somebody. Friend of mine.”

“Oh yeah? Lucky you.”

He smiled and shook his head. “Good luck finding your guy. I’d help if I could, but, uh.” He frowned. “Don’t think my thing works in here.”

“Your thing?”

“Power. Word of God.”

“You know, I keep trying to explain to everyone that I’m agnostic, but this place really isn’t doing me any favours.” Klaus stared up into the sky. No clouds, no breeze, no nothing. He didn’t even feel real here, all grey-scale and washed out. What a waste of fucking time. “Well, thanks anyway. Good luck finding your, uh. Dog-man.”

“Thanks.” The preacher offered his hand and pulled Klaus to his feet. There was absolutely no body-heat shared between them, like touching plastic. As Klaus brushed the lack of sand from his pants, the preacher put his hand on Klaus’ shoulder and said, “Find peace.”

Klaus glanced up, brow crumpling quizzically.

The preacher scowled. “No, that didn’t work right.” He cleared his throat. “Find peace—”

The girl came trotting up on her donkey, she looking cross and the beast ornery. “There you are.” She hopped off the animal and walked up to Klaus, reached out one hand, and smacked him squarely in the middle of the forehead. “Go home!”

xXx

He woke up in Diego’s bed with his head throbbing and gory bits of his skull still splattering the walls. “Ah, fuck.”

“You were dead.” Diego sounded hollowed out, his voice rough and his eyes red and sore-looking.

“Sorry.”

The gun sat on top of the dresser by the bed. Klaus didn’t want to look at it.

“It didn’t work.” His hands sat folded uselessly in his lap. “I thought it would, but he wasn’t there.”

“Dave.”

Klaus nodded. “Yeah. Dave.”

Diego sighed and came to sit on the mattress beside him. “Okay. Why don’t you tell me about him.”

Klaus leaned into him, mindful of the bandages, and let out his breath. Diego radiated heat, had ever since they were kids. Burned like a furnace. Probably gave great hugs, if you could get all those knives off him first. “So, during that whole apocalypse week, I ended up getting dropped in the middle of the Vietnam War…”

xXx

Ben returned while Klaus was back home in the shower trying to scrub bits of his own brain out of his hair. He was sitting on the bathroom counter when Klaus got out of the shower, wrapping one towel around his chest and the other around his hair. He would have preferred a bath—sinking under the water until everything went quiet—but the thought of soaking for any amount of time with his own brain matter was disgusting, even for him.

“You done trying to kill yourself?”

“Yeah.” Klaus slid his headphones on and fiddled with his music player. “That didn’t work, so I guess I’m back to square one.”

Ben nodded, not looking Klaus in the eye.

“I’m sorry,” Klaus said quietly. “I really thought it was going to work. I’m glad you came back.”

“If you do that again, I won’t,” Ben said flatly, and Klaus flinched. “Do you have any idea what it’s like, watching you throw away your entire life like this?”

“And over some boy, too,” Klaus joked, even though everything hurt. “I know, right?”

“Even before him.” Ben slid off the counter and headed for the door, shaking his head. “I love you, man. I wish you’d get your shit together before you end up dead for good.”

He flickered through the door and disappeared. Klaus found the most depressing playlist he had and pressed Play.

xXx

He tried to do better. He tried to move on. He stayed off the drugs and avoided—well, most of the booze, if not all. He wore his stupid leather pants that laced up the sides, and his see-through crop tops, and his fake-fur coats that looked more grunge than glam, did his makeup, did his nails. Did everything he could to get back to normal, or—a better version of normal. A healthier version. Diego wouldn’t let him out of his sight but he hadn’t told the others, except maybe Five, but Five wasn’t the coddling type. Klaus would have had to kill himself for real if he had to deal with Luther trying to stage an intervention, but Diego wouldn’t do him dirty like that. And he couldn’t have told Allison, because she would have told Luther herself, and Vanya—

Well, Vanya wasn’t in a state to be told anything, not yet. Not that Diego would.

So Diego hovered and tried to get him to eat real food and, god help him, actually _work out_ like some kind of monster—and while Klaus appreciated the sentiment, he could only go so far. Not that Diego could work out much with those stitches still holding him together. Thank god for small mercies.

“At least you’re trying,” Ben pointed out. “That’s a good sign. You can do this.”

“This is human performance at its finest.”

Klaus plucked the joint from his mouth to exhale smoke into the room. He was laying on his back on the living room sofa, feet kicked up over one end and his arm behind his head at the other, headphones firmly in place to dissuade conversation, not that Ben would take the hint. Also: marijuana didn’t count as substance abuse, as he’d already explained to Diego. It was practically legal. Diego’s body might be a temple, but Klaus’ was one of those shady carnivals one mysterious disappearance away from skipping town and never being heard from again.

“You could try a little harder, though,” Ben said.

“Excusez moi? This is as good as it gets, baby.”

“You’ve been listening to The Black Parade on repeat for the last thirty hours.”

“Because it’s a masterpiece of an album, Ben.”

“Really? You can’t think of any more cheerful masterpieces?”

Klaus pressed one hand over his heart. “Are you accusing me of being morbid? Me, of all people? How very dare you.” He blew another lungful of smoke through Ben, who wrinkled his nose and waved it away. As if he could actually smell it. “Hey, do you have a sense of smell? I’ve never asked that before.”

“No, but I can sense that you’re pretending to be more okay than you really are.”

“Ben, come on, I don’t want to talk about it.”

“You know why I really left earlier?”

Klaus stilled.

“I was trying to find help. I thought that after everything, maybe the others would be able to see me without you, and I could tell them to come get you before it was too late.” Ben shoved his hands in his pockets. “Before you blew your brains out all over Diego’s bed. I hope you bought him a new mattress, at least.”

Klaus rolled onto his stomach, shifting his music player along with him. In his headphones, Gerard Way was screaming about the horrors of war as Liza Minnelli wailed in the background. He shuddered and hit Pause, tugging his headphones to sit around his neck. “Or we could switch to Three Cheers, how about that? Something a little more uplifting?”

“Klaus.” Ben came to sit on the arm of the couch. “You’ve never had to mourn anyone before. You never learned how.”

“In the middle of a gunfight…” Klaus hummed, scrolling through his playlists. “In the center of a restaurant…”

“Klaus.”

“I know, okay! I’m emotionally stunted and I’m not good at letting go. Shit, the only other person in my life I’ve ever really cared about that died was you, and you’re still here. Constantly. Whether I want you to be or not.”

“You always want me here, because you’re terrified of being alone.”

Klaus gave him a wide smile. “Want to put that to the test?” 

He found the album and hit Play, cranking the volume until it drowned Ben out. He staggered to his feet, pushing past Ben and his stupid, concerned, sadly sympathetic face, and stomped up the stairs to disappear into his room, slamming the door and throwing himself onto the bed. Tequila under the pillow: beautiful, perfect.

He turned onto his back, holding the bottle on his stomach and rolling it between his hands, but didn’t actually open it. He wanted to do better. It was just that doing better didn’t seem to come with any sort of reward, and he was so tired. He thumbed the volume up and shut his eyes.

_At the end of the world or the last thing I see, you are never coming home, never coming home…_

He pressed the crook of his elbow over his eyes to stop them from burning, but the tears welled up to spill down his face all the same.

_And all the things that you never ever told me, and all the smiles that are never ever…ever…_

“Klaus?”

“Go away.”

Something cold brushed his wrist and he jerked his arm back, ready to snap out something biting, only to blink the tears back and look up like he was staring into the sun.

“Dave?” His voice was little more than a whisper, the name dying in his throat before it could make its way out. He tossed the tequila to the floor and ripped off his headphones, scrambling upright as he reached with grasping hands towards—

Dave, who was there, whole and beautiful and perfect, wearing the same army greens he’d died in, but there was no gory mess of a hole where his chest should be. He smiled ruefully and ducked his head, that perfect jawline softening as he looked away. “Hey there.” His voice was just as Klaus remembered it.

“You’re here,” Klaus whispered. He was standing beside the bed, arms out and wanting to wrap around Dave and never let go, but he couldn’t, so he was left suspended with his fingers splayed and useless, hovering in midair. “You’re really here.”

“Sorry it took so long.” Dave rubbed his hand over the back of his neck sheepishly. “Guess you weren’t kidding when you talked about all that out-of-time stuff, huh? Didn’t make it easy to find you.”

Klaus clapped his hand over his own mouth even as he cried. “You were looking?”

“This whole time. I knew you were out there—you’re like a magnet, you know that? I just had to follow the pull.” He grinned more easily this time, and the whole room lit up with his smile. “Always were like that, though. Ever since that first day.”

“How long?” Klaus swallowed and crept nearer, still not daring to try to touch. “How long has it been for you?”

“I’m not sure,” Dave admitted. “I remember that day—dying, there in that hellhole, with you—like it just happened. Can’t shake it. But then again.” He shrugged. “It’s 2019. I know time’s passed. Don’t know if I went through it linearly, but that’s for somebody else to figure out, huh?”

“Yeah,” Klaus breathed. “Yeah, leave it to the physicists.”

“How long’s it been for you?”

Klaus shook his head. “Shorter. Barely anything at all.” He looked at his hands and remembered them stained red. Had it been two weeks? It felt like a second and a lifetime both at once. “I’m glad you’re here.”

“Me too.” Dave nodded, a soft expression on his face. “You’re wearing my tags.”

Klaus touched them unconsciously, the metal warming under his fingers. “Oh, yeah. I haven’t taken them off.”

Dave stepped forward and before Klaus could warn him that they couldn’t touch, he had cupped Klaus’ face and lifted it up, his touch tingling like electricity but unmistakably solid, and pressed a kiss to his lips. Klaus shut his eyes and keened, throwing himself into Dave’s arms and threading his fingers through his hair, hurting and needy and so fucking desperate to just be touched and held like he was real and loved and mattered. All that time, and now Dave was standing in front of him like they’d never even left that dance hall.

“I love you,” Klaus whispered into Dave’s mouth. “I thought I’d never see you again. I couldn’t find you, no matter where I looked, and I thought you were gone forever.”

“I love you too. And I’m not going anywhere. We’re going to be okay.”

“Yeah,” Klaus whispered through his smile. “Everything’s going to be fine.”

Maybe with Dave here, that would be incentive enough to lay off the drugs for good. If staying sober had a point, if it meant he could wake up every morning and see Dave lying next to him, tangible and happy and whole, then maybe—

He glanced over Dave’s shoulder to the mirror leaning against the wall. He could see Dave with perfect clarity in the reflection, but that didn’t mean much. “Hey, do you think if somebody walked by the room right now, they’d just see me having a one-man party in here, or?”

Dave huffed out a laugh. “Guess we’ll have to wait and find out.” He took Klaus’ hand and turned it palm up, kissing the soft skin there, his lips tingling against the ink. 

HELLO.

Klaus shivered and held his breath. “Guess we will.”

**Author's Note:**

> I haven't been replying to comments but I want you to know that I love and appreciate every single one! My only goal was to induce at least one bout of light sobbing and I have succeeded. Love you all! xo


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